Kimmi's Blog

Gender biased is in everything, even alcohol advertising. Even if you don’t drink, or haven’t watched that many commercials, I’m sure you could distinguish which ads are guy drinks and which are female drinks as soon as you saw them. What makes a drink a guy or girl one? From what I have noticed, girl drinks are the fruity, less strong ones and the male drinks are the strong ones that don’t taste as good. Also, male drinks have a higher percentage of alcohol in them than female ones. Is the world not supposed to be an equal place where everybody is treated the same regardless of their gender, sexuality, looks, religion, or anything else. That is what all the men and woman are fighting in the wars for is freedom and equality. In a way, we are just throwing away everything that they have worked so hard for just for alcohol.

Regardless of what anyone else says, I will always believe that wars are started to bring peace. A horrible killing event is started to bring the exact opposite. Think of it. The military in itself is breaking the gender stereotype. As stated in my post about children’s toys woman are supposed to stay at home and take care of the children while men go off and fight in the war. But the military enroles both men and woman which helps make the gender stereotypes in today’s world less obvious. I don’t see the point in wars if we are just going to take the benifits to our advantage, but do nothing to prevent further unequality. The discrimination of males and females is not helping the brave people in the army.

Alcohol is a drug. Simple as that. Sure it is not the first drug that comes to mind when someone tells you to name three drugs. Coke, crank, smack, weed, or angel dust might be some of the names that first come to mind. But alcohol is a drug, a depressant. I came across this ad that reenforces what I am trying to put across. I am not quite sure what the advertisement is for but this is the link. You see a girl that seems to be treating the alcohol as cocaine shown by her using the same tactic as would be used to snort coke.  I believe that most youth today consider alcohol  the least harmful drug. It is not portrayed as addictive, and it does not harm your image except maybe give you a beer belly, but that of course is only what men drink. This is why it is not a huge worry. Meth gives you ‘bugs under your skin’ and really bad teeth. Other drugs affect appearance in other ways, but alcohol is in a way, a silent drug. To get more on task with the gender stereotypes, do you ever see female drug dealers in commercials? Do you ever see male prostitutes, or female pimps? Alcoholics are normally portrayed as old men with bad hygiene or young females passed out at a party.

Advertisement also try to persuade an individual to buy them by promising certain lifestyles. Woman are promised to look skinny and be very fit like in this ad. But the  reality behind this ad is that if you drink it you will probably gain weight. And the sad thing is that it works. Woman are so desperate to be that skinny stay at home mom that they are taught that they should be when they are younger. These ads promising to look young and gorgeous like the models in the ad would not be as successful if society did not have the stereotype of what woman should be. Models are models for a reason. The average woman in America is a size 12 or 14. Thats why models get paid so much to be so skinny, is becuase the rest of America is not. So why do we as a society, try and portray that every woman should be like a model. I do not see the point. We are who we are and a fruity little drink is not going to change this.

I am very strongly in support for equality between not only men and woman and children, but also animals and any breathing thing on this planet. And the part that makes me even more mad about gender stereotypes in alcohol is that men do not have the same expectations. They are supposed to get a beer belly and fool around with woman in the ads, but woman are just supposed to sip their drinks, laugh, and look gorgeous. I think its time for the world to give up all the expectations of certain groups. Not all Germans are Nazi, not all woman are a size 2. There are diferent types of people in the world and it is cruel to try and fit them all into a couple groups. We should be able to be who we are, without pointless stereotypes holding us back. Alcohol ads are not the prime source, but they certainly add fuel to the fire. If the creaters of these ads stopped re enforcing the gender stereotypes, it would surely help. One company, one ad, one person at a time.